


i can't handle change

by birdycurtains



Series: Wish I Were Her [5]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Closure, Healthy Relationships, Implied/Referenced Cheating, M/M, Peter Parker is Trying His Best, Post-Break Up, Precious Peter Parker, Protective Bucky Barnes, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-16 09:21:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29080035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/birdycurtains/pseuds/birdycurtains
Summary: Or maybe Peter can, and even better than he expected. And what we've all been waiting for: Wedding Day.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Peter Parker, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Peter Parker/Tony Stark
Series: Wish I Were Her [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1747495
Comments: 3
Kudos: 52





	i can't handle change

**Author's Note:**

> thank u all so much for following my little series, and watching peter grow with me. sometimes we try to bury ourselves in other people, but we all need to grow to love ourselves separate from our relationships with others. and especially when it comes to unhealthy relationships. i hope we all someday find ourselves our bucky barnes, and can be loved wholely, for just being ourselves.

Peter looks nice, he truly does. Fit to play the part of a supportive and elated friend.

He’s even wearing an outfit Tony himself had bought for him. They had gone to the shop in the Upper West Side together and had gotten on his knees for him in the town car on the way back to the penthouse.

He rubs his eyes in an attempt to brush the memory from his thoughts.

That’s all he would ever have with Tony anymore, just memories. Peter would only be lying to himself if he had believed there would be anything left in his future with him.

But Bucky…

When he looks at Bucky, all Peter can see is his future. Bucky is warmth and light, where Tony had been cold and uncertain. He is everything that Peter needed, and Tony could never give him. He tries not to blame Tony entirely, knowing there are missteps in his life that led him to become a distant and unfaithful man, incapable of being honest with himself and anyone that fell into his bed. 

He can only hope that Pepper can be the change, that her love for him can be enough this time.

Peter knew deep down somewhere, that he and Tony were never forever, that it had been a childish endeavor to think it would be anything other than an afterthought for Tony at the end of the day. But at the same time, he knew that Tony would always have this strange hold on him he could never quite shake. 

Maybe time was the only key, to rot the roots that Tony had planted inside him, and allow something new to grow and blossom. 

And with the way Bucky is looking at him right now. 

It might be sooner than he thought. 

“You sure clean up nice. Don’t you Parker?” A gruff voice sounds.

Peter doesn’t startle although Bucky is closer than he had seen a moment ago. He only smiles bashfully and turns coyly to face the other man.

“This old thing?” He laughs awkwardly, although his face heats at the way Bucky stares.

The cold fall day hadn’t permitted the light suit he had planned on wearing, rather opting for the monotone wardrobe of a black turtle neck and high waisted slacks that gently accentuated his lithe figure. He knew he looked, well. Good. And the politely surprised look on the man’s face was worth every figure on the price tag. 

Peter searches inside himself and tries to find an unconscious urge to impress Tony one last time, some reason for why he desperately wants to carry some semblance of being put together, and trying not to source it back to him. 

He comes up empty, and he can only smile, and let the relief wash over him.

Peter feels a little lighter, and something tells him Bucky knows this too. And that it’s all James Barnes’ fault, and Peter isn’t upset in the slightest.

\-----------

Seeing Tony at the entrance to where the ceremony would be taking place mildly shocked Peter. Although he isn’t exactly sure as to why considering the amount of coaching he had done to himself in the passenger seat of Bucky’s old Buick. 

Bucky had driven the two of them to the upstate location of the wedding. 

He had decided as one of many measures to organizing his life, was to get his driver's license and had bought an ‘87 Buick GNX off of one of the men in his VA meetings. 

Peter remembered when Bucky took him driving for the first time in it. It had been a week or so after the initial break-off between Tony and Peter, and just to get him out of the apartment, they drove. Nowhere in particular until they stopped for gas somewhere in Orange County, and ended up in Hudson Valley. 

It rained as they returned into the city, and Peter had broken down. The rain made his bones ache, and he felt hollower than before. Bucky held him through it, both of them cramped in the backseat when the tremors had wracked his body. After he had composed himself, Bucky took him to a diner in Brooklyn that another buddy from the VA worked at, and he ate fries and Bucky made him laugh till he nearly puked.

When Peter looks at Tony again, feeling the weight of Bucky’s hand on his shoulder, he thinks he’ll be okay. Maybe not always, but he will be, for now.

“Parker! Barnes. Glad you both could make it.” Tony’s voice is booming and resounding, it always has, he had this never-ending ability to command a room with his firm and encouraging lilt. 

And when Bucky shakes the other man’s hand, there’s a tenseness in Tony, that Peter had never witnessed before. Anxiety in the way his eyes flit from Peter to Bucky, and then to Bucky’s gleaming appendage, delicately concealed beneath the black dress shirt he had sported and had claimed he hadn’t coordinated with Peter’s attire. And if he claimed otherwise, Peter wouldn’t have been mad either. 

“Of course Mr. Stark, wouldn’t miss it for the world.” Peter surprises himself with the steadiness and warmth in his voice. It hadn’t held the same weight as before, and he feels he might have had an ounce of acceptance over the scenario playing out.

Tony appears to hold the same emotions, his face mildly pulled into something akin to shock before schooling his expression. 

Flashing a glance at the too-long handshake between the pair, Peter returns his gaze to Tony, only catching him eyeing his attire for a second, before returning to reality and pulling his hand away from Bucky. 

Peter nods politely and begins to leave as an awkwardness begins to set in, he feels a warm weight on his waist, and before he knows it, he is tucked into the side of Bucky’s body and being pulled to the seating area. 

His barely-concealed glee presents itself as his face flushes a dark shade of red and he shoots a look at Bucky, who only looks on, unbothered. And although Peter feels the eyes boring into his back, he can’t seem to make himself care.

The area is tastefully decorated, a few rows of seating placed before an altar, all seeming to be tailored to Pepper’s taste at the beginning of the small field, he had overheard that it was a location near a town she often visited with her family as a child. 

The ceremony goes on to be the same, tasteful and formal, and it was the most collected Peter had seen Tony, well, ever. Pepper had looked beautiful, and Peter still felt that same pull of guilt within him, but this time belonged to her, and he would give her this mercy, of not tainting her marriage, and hoping it would be enough to repent.

He and Bucky seat themselves in the back, as far away as possible, for both of their sakes. And although they receive a quirked eyebrow for their behavior from Natasha, it all goes unsaid. Much like most other things in the private lives of the Avengers.

Later during the reception, which had been held off to the side at some designated old crafted wooden tables with an array of artisan foods and a too-tall wedding cake, Peter and Bucky relish in each others company for the first time publicly. They have a single dance to a Billie Holliday song that Steve had politely requested from the band, and then decidedly take a backseat to the events for the rest of the evening. 

When the October sun proves not enough to shelter Peter from the cold autumn air, he leans into Bucky’s side even more and brings his lips to his ear, “Do you mind if I run to the car real quick?” He hums lowly. And his lips twitch into a small smirk as he notices the shiver that Bucky tries to conceal. 

Bucky gives him a faux glare before pressing his keys into Peter’s palm.

He catches Tony watching him as he briskly walks out to the lot where the cars of the attendees had parked and tries to swallow his anxieties that have seemed to bubble up in his throat at the sight of his ex-lover eyeing him at his own wedding.

Sighing in relief as he is covered by the dark unyielding frame of the Buick, he unlocks the doors before nearly crawling into the backseat to retrieve his wool coat, another gift from Tony.

Receding from the car, he turns his focus to the carefully treading footsteps on the grass behind him.

Peter swallows before turning his attention away from the article grasped between his hands.

“Barnes, huh?” A calm, but terse utterance calls out quietly.

“Yeah,” Peter replies, although his voice breaks, and he cringes internally.

He watches Tony rub at his groomed beard, an almost irritated, or frustrated body language overtaking him. But Peter, Peter is just tired.

“I,” Tony begins catching himself, as if he was at war within his mind, “I never expected you to leave.”

Peter is baffled, to say the least, and conveys as such with a scoff, “But did you really expect me to stay?”

The resounding silence becomes his answer.

He turns away, aiming to return to the reception, and implore Bucky that right now would be a spectacular time to leave, but Tony speaks again.

“I did- I _do_ love you, Peter.”

Peter feels the tears well up in his eyes and huffs before aiming his gaze at the sky in an attempt to repress the tears he promised himself he would not shed until much later.

“I loved you too Tony, at some point I really did. But I can’t let myself anymore. I’m moving on. And so should you, you have a wife now for crying out loud,” his voice wobbles and he feels the tears slip down his cheeks as the wind begins to bite at his face. “I loved you so much, and you broke me, and you weren’t there. And guess what? Bucky was. He was _always_ there. So excuse me for finding someone who actually wants to reciprocate and have a happy, healthy, loving relationship with me, Tony. Excuse me!” He feels his voice raising and has to avert his body away from the other man.

“I’m done with the lies, with the hurt, the guilt. For having to look your wife in the eye today knowing damn well that you fucked me in the bed you’re gonna take her home to for the rest of your lives, or however long this marriage lasts until you eventually fuck it up, _again_.” Peter hisses. 

Peter watches as Tony’s eyes gloss over, and the man rubs his hands over his face in an attempt to push away his own tears. If this had been a moment months ago, Peter would have coddled and kissed away every tear streak, but now, he can’t even bear to be near him. 

“Congratulations on your marriage Mr. Stark. I hope you two, are happy together. I really do,” Peter says, and this conversation might have been the most honest he was with Tony ever. 

He only nods in reply, and he appears to be unable to even face him.

Peter retreats from the lot, and the weight is almost gone.

Because Bucky is waiting for him, and he knows that everything, might just be ok from now on.

**Author's Note:**

> whew this turned out longer than i imagined. but i hope these couple hundred more words make up for the extreme gap between this and past updates. well, this is the end of the line for this series, or not, idk yet, but until then, i bid my goodbyes to this little au, and i hope u enjoyed <3


End file.
